Princess of Gehenna
by Thessaly
Summary: We can’t all be Drama the rebel, just like we can’t all be Bella the fanatic, said Narcissa quietly.  Narcissa Black pays visit to her older sister with a gift and an invitation.


**(A/N)** _Somewhat of a follow-up to my Beautiful People. Helps if you've read it; no tragedy if you haven't. I don't own the Potterverse, I rent. _

Knockturn Alley was not the only dodgy street twisting off of the main thoroughfare of Diagon Alley. There were, in fact, quite a number of small streets winding deep into the seedier parts of Wizarding London. The street life was equally questionable; rats with intelligent eyes scuttled here and there, and small boys in rags loitered on the corners. With all of England looking over their shoulder for the Dark Lord, there were fewer squatters than usual, but, as Mother would say, some people wouldn't stop at anything.

The street life of Mattress Lane, affectionately known as Gehenna for reasons no one was willing ask, had never seen anyone quite like this walker, anything but pedestrian. She was a slim young woman, dressed in pink and white, with immaculate gloves and fair hair. In the perpetual gloom of Gehenna, she flickered like a marsh light, cold and bright and distant. They watched her, but no one whistled. No one dared to. And so she walked, unchallenged, to the building she wanted, and they watched, blankly, as the tail of her pink dress vanished around the door frame. Then one boy muttered, "Cor, some posh bird for the princess, eh?" and received a thump on the head from his friend, who hissed, "you keep off that one, all right? She's dangerous, she is." The urchins, who rather liked "the princess" who lived in number eighteen, slouched off, a little worried.

Narcissa Black knew they were watching her and didn't care. Her painted face was carefully neutral, but her tension expressed itself in the letter, crushed in one small hand. A letter almost five years old. _You're mad_, she told herself. But family loyalty died hard. And there were…extenuating circumstances. _Absolutely raving._ She walked up the creaking steps; thank Merlin she only had to go the second floor. Gehenna, with its old bricked buildings, was not a place she would have chosen to live, but she supposed it could have been worse. The sounds of the other residents of number eighteen filtered through the stairwell to her as she climbed through dust-flecked sunlight. She hadn't been off Diagon Alley in a long time; not into these streets. She remembered them, though; remembered the club Galahad, another block south and two west. She rather wished she didn't.

She reached the second floor and stopped. Which door? Both were plain wood; one with a small plaque "Counseling Centre" affixed next to the door. The one on the left had a small set of windchimes hanging over the door. That was it, all right. It had to be. Narcissa swallowed, raised her gloved hand, and knocked.

From inside was scuffle and the sound of laughing voices. Someone yelled, "Just leave the milk, Sven." Narcissa knocked again, and the voice said, more quietly, "Oh, Fu – fiddle. You wait in Mum's room, all right, love?" Someone drew back the bolts and the door opened a margin. Brown eyes stared into blue, and Andromeda Tonks said, "Dear, sweet Merlin. Go away."

Narcissa looked at the sliver of her sister's face. It looked older. "No. I need to speak to you."

"No, you bloody well don't!" said Andromeda. "Go away."

"Drama," Narcissa said. "Let me in."

"No."

A prettily-shod foot inserted itself into the door and forced it inexorably open. Narcissa, in a whiff of expensive perfume and extreme self-possession, entered her sister's apartment. "Goodness. Is this it then?" It was not really a bad flat, but Narcissa couldn't help thinking of the expensively decorated Lestrage townhouse or Malfoy manor, full of crystal and velvet and silver plate. "Well, Bella certainly married better."

"Did you only come to insult me?" snapped Drama, crossing her arms over her chest and surveying the other woman. Narcissa was twenty-two and lovely, her sister noted dispassionately. A face that might have come from the imagination of a Renaissance master with a dainty nose and lips that curled, oh-so-slightly, up with troughs that were almost dimples. Long eyes lashes of a pure gold and high, arched brows the same colour. There was a virginal sweetness about those lips that suggested that there were kisses for the winning and a softness in the blue eyes that hinted at the possibility of languishing. It was the face of a damsel with the potential for distress; the face of a woman to win. The face of an ornament for the house. It was, in all, a carefully planned face. She was flawless, except perhaps in the slight tilt of the chin which made it look as though she was looking down her nose at the whole world. And there was, bracketing the mouth, a touch of cruelty.

Narcissa opened her mouth, tried to speak, and couldn't. Her sister had aged noticeably. It was the same chocolate-coloured hair, but there was less humour in her full mouth, and more patience, suffering. She was also visibly pregnant. Narcissa sat down and said coolly, "You _have_ let yourself go, Drama. I'm here to pay you a visit."

"What?" Drama felt her temper rising. "You show up, uninvited, on my doorstep for a _social call_?" She bit down savagely on the anger she had learned, in the last five hard years, to control. "You never do anything without a reason; what do you want? You're here for something, just tell me, and then get out!"

Narcissa held out a handful of crumpled paper. "I am not uninvited," she said.

"I invited you five blooming _years_ ago, to my wedding and my daughter's christening. I did not mean it as an open invitation!"

Narcissa raised one shaped eyebrow. "You invited me because you were certain I wouldn't come," she said. "For the same reason you invited the rest of the family. Your lovely farewell message to everyone," her voice rose to match her sister's, "Up yours; I'm marryinga Muggle!"

"Why shouldn't I marry a man I love? It's a foreign concept to you and Mrs. Lestrange, I know, but give me one good reason why I shouldn't?"

"He's a Muggle," said Narcissa, breathing hard. "Drama, you were seven months pregnant. You're weren't even _family_ anymore; we were under no obligation to come!"

"That's exactly why you SHOULD have come, Cis. Because you were under no obligation!"

"To see you disgrace the family, walking up to a _Muggle_ alter with a_ Muggle_ boy and quite obviously a _half-blood_ child? Drama, you're the reason _I_'m not married yet!"

"How?" snapped Andromeda. "Because you should have come? Because I married him? Because I slept with him before we got married?"

"_Because_ all of it," said Narcissa. "Because you ran off with a Muggle, no one was going to offer for me. I've had to wait five years for things to blow over. You have no idea of how maddening that is, do you?"

"I think you sound like a spoiled brat, Narcissa Black. You will never be an old maid, and you know it, so don't get shirty with me."

Narcissa sat back. "Funny how we still trip over each other's business, everything concerned," she said. "Never mind." She reached into her reticule and removed a carved ebony box with an ornamented silver clasp shaped like a snake. "This is for Nymphadora."

Drama let out her breath in an explosion that was almost laughter. "Did you seriously - "

"Get pearls?" finished Narcissa, and flipped the box open. A long strand of pearls lay on the black velvet lining. "_Some_one had to give them to her." She smiled a little. "I think Bella left hers in the house, but you still have yours, don't you?"

"Oh, don't look at me like that; I didn't pawn them," said Drama sourly. "They're around somewhere." She laughed. "I used to be so jealous of you because you got Grandmother Ida's strand, and I had to make do with a set from dappy old Aunt Margaret…Of all the quaint little traditions, I can't believe you're actually reviving _this_ one." She sighed and reached over to take the box from her sister's hands. "I'll give them to her. Thank you, Cis." She touched the little round globes. "They're lovely."

"I also wanted," said Narcissa slowly, "to invite you to my wedding, Drama." She paused. "And your little girl, of course." There was a faint rustle as she placed the gold-edged parchment on the table.

Drama read it automatically. _Narcissa Marie Black to Lucius Paul Malfoy_. "But not my husband, is that it?"

"Drama, you can't bring a Muggle my wedding."

"He's not just a Muggle," Drama yelled, starting forward. "He's my _husband_." Narcissa shrugged a little distastefully. Drama leaned back into her chair slowly. "Narcissa, give me one reason I can understand…why are you marrying Lucius sodding Malfoy?"

Narcissa's little nose crinkled, as it always did at Drama's language. "He's going to give me a home and a place in society."

"Do you love him?" You couldn't trust Narcissa's face, and Drama, of long practice, watched her sister's hands. They shook, just a little.

"That, I believe, is immaterial."

Drama cocked an eyebrow. "Hmph." She held out her left hand and the plain gold band glimmered under the light. "I love Ted, Cis. _I love him_. It's not just, oh, he makes me go all gushy inside; it's comfort and patience and belief and absolute trust."

"We can't all be you," said Narcissa quietly. "We can't all be Drama the rebel, just like we can't all be Bella the fanatic." She paused, took another breath. "Lucius wants to marry me because I am the perfect hostess." Her voice was detached as though describing another woman. "Because I am exquisite and well brought-up. Because I am just young enough to find him exciting but certainly wise enough to live with him. Because he wants an ornament who will run the house for him and because I want a house to run. Because are well-matched."

"You're getting married to be an ornament? Because he has a _house_?" said Drama.

"Two," said her sister with another little smile. "The manor and the town house."

"You're getting married to a Death Eater because he has two houses?"

"I am not concerned with how he amuses himself. But more or less, yes."

"And rather more than less," said Drama with sarcasm worthy of her rejected family. "I can't believe I'm hearing this. Bella was bad enough, but _you_…married to _Malfoy_? And you don't _care_ that he's a Death Eater? It's not amusement, Cis, it's _murder_!"

"I make my own choices," said Narcissa, tiny lines about her mouth tightening. "And I shouldn't have to defend them. I'm not the one who married a _Muggle_."

"Be polite to my husband," said Drama, her temper rising again.

"Why? You're not polite to mine."

"He's not your husband yet," she pointed out. "And you started it."

"I did not."

"You did so!"

The line of Narcissa's mouth quivered a little and she began to giggle, then laugh out loud, in rills of golden notes that cascaded through Drama's little flat. Narcissa's shoulders shook so hard she might have been sobbing, an appearance belied only by the bright, hard determination of her laughter. "Oh, Drama," said Narcissa between gasps. "I _have _missed you."

When she stopped she was flushed and lovely and her strange laughter had given Drama time to consider. Narcissa had a complicated mind; she never said what she meant. "Cis," said Drama. "Is there anything you wanted to tell me?"

Narcissa's eyes looked young and vulnerable, and her bracelet caught the sunshine coming through the window, tossing reflections of old parties along the walls. Illusions and appearances; games to be played accompanied by malicious laughter. The light on jewels was one of the cruelest Drama knew; those wavering reflections in candle-bright evenings were deceptive, dangerous. She remembered that world – that world that Cis had chosen – too well. _Funny how we still trip over each other's business_ she had said.Drama thought of their shared childhood; the little pranks and whispers overheard in the big house. Always at night Narcissa would drift into Drama's room like a small ghost, seemingly at random. And if Drama said exactly the right thing, the little girl would slide open like a puzzle and confess whatever weighed on her mind. Then she would drift away, back to her pretty little room with the dolls that looked just like her lined up along the wall. But Drama had never been good at puzzles, and she was sadly out of practice at the moment, and so the right thing evaded her here.

Then someone opened the door from the bedroom, and a small face peeped out, and the moment was gone. "Mummy?" it said, "Can I come out now?" The sunbeam was obscured by a cloud, and Narcissa was once more composed and elegant and too old to be Drama's little sister.

"Not yet, love. Why don't you play with your toys for a bit more?" said Drama.

Narcissa looked at the little girl. She was a Black, all right. She had Bella's cheekbones and Narcissa's chin, although the hair was mousy-brown and probably her father's. "Nymphadora?" she said.

The little girl nodded and scampered out of the room over to her mother. She slid on the corner of the carpet and ran into Andromeda with more force than necessary. "Careful, love," said Drama automatically.

"Sorry," said Nymphadora without much feeling. She looked up at Narcissa out of guileless eyes and scrunched her nose. The eyes turned blue, the cheekbones softened, and the hair went gold. Narcissa stared at her own face, then looked up at Drama.

"Your daughter is a metamorph?"

"Yes," said Drama. She ruffled her daughter's hair. "Mummy's a bit busy, love. Can you go play for a bit longer?"

"Uh huh," said Nymphadora, but she didn't move; just stared at Narcissa. "You look like a princess; I mean, a good one. But you're mean. How come you're insulting my Mummy?"

Narcissa seemed unable to speak. Finally she said, in a curiously toneless voice, "I'm insulting your Mummy because we're family and that means you can insult each other."

Nymphadora giggled. "That's what Daddy says about my Auntie Sandra."

"Sweetheart," said Drama mildly. "That's not the sort of thing you tell guests, all right? I think you should go now; the lady and I aren't quite finished yet."

"No, I'm just going," said Narcissa. She leaned over and touched the girl's cheek with a gloved finger. "I've got a present for you," she said, and handed Nymphadora the box on the table.

The girl fumbled the clasp open – Narcissa winced – and gasped. "For _me_? But they're so pretty." She looked up and changed her hair to black. She now looked alarmingly like all three Black sisters combined; Bella's hair, Narcissa's eyes, and Drama's nose. "I can be a princess too."

"Of course you can," said Narcissa with a very faint smile. "You don't need pearls to be a princess, you know. You just need to act like one." She stood up and picked up her purse, leaving the invitation on the table. "Do think about coming, won't you?"

Drama scowled. "I am _not_ exposing either of us to those carrion who move in 'your circles'. I doubt you'll see us."

"How will the princes find me if I don't look like a princess?"

Narcissa, nearly at the door, stiffened and said, "That's the curious thing about princes, Nymphadora; they know their princess the moment they meet her, no matter what she looks like."

"Do you have a prince?"

"I did," she said quietly. "Ask your mother about him." The door shut with an implacable click. On one side, Narcissa walked down the stairs dappled in patches of sunlight and shadow.

On the other, Drama found the key to the puzzle printed in the obituaries in the _Daily Prophet_ where Constantine Matthew Fitzgerald waved at the world from the picture next to his column. Lost chances…there were so many of them, and not only for the Order. She sometimes forgot that the Old Families were people. Narcissa, Regulus, even dappy Aunt Margaret. So many lost chances there; so many squandered talents. It was a nasty world to grow up in.

Nymphadora said, "Mummy? Why are you crying?" Receiving no answer, she went back into the bedroom and decided that she didn't want to be a princess after all. She dragged a chair over and shoved the little black box up in the corner of the wardrobe. Then she built a fort under the desk and stayed in there until teatime when Daddy came home and asked Mummy what was the matter.


End file.
